Hopeless
by Card Carrying Villains
Summary: You are Eridan Ampora and you are about to make a very painful choice. Warning: Major character death, serious angsting. By Spades


Hey, folks. I'm Spades and this is what I do in history class.

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><p>Eridan: Lose hope.<p>

You are Eridan Ampora and you can no longer see a good end to the story. The last Aradiabot finally combusted, leaving her dead for good and no more inspiring, encouraging messages from the future. No assurance that you even _have_ a future, because that's what everyone always asked her when she traveled back from the countless doomed timelines: _Am I still alive in the future you're coming from?_ You no longer know how much longer you have to live, and that scares you. You might have days. You might have _minutes_.

Minutes, unfortunately for you, are a scarily higher possibility than days. You've known for about half an hour that there's no more sopor slime left anywhere on the meteor; it's only a matter of time before Gamzee comes down from his perma-high and to this realization himself, and when he does, you're all doomed. Even as a highblood, you are doomed. One of the doomed Aradiabots told you all a horror story about the doomed timeline she'd escaped from where exactly that had happened. Gamzee had gotten everyone; you and Feferi despite your blood, Karkat and Tavros despite their friendship with him, Vriska despite god tier and almost Aradia too if she hadn't absconded back in time before it was too late.

And now it _is_ too late.

You don't want Gamzee to kill everyone you care about. You're just going to pretend he's still his stupid, stoned self for a little while longer while you go back upstairs and save the few people you actually still care about. Feferi (you're flushed for her, you can't help it), Kanaya (she made you your science wand, after all. Gotta thank her somehow), maybe even Sollux (if he acknowledges that you're actually his kismesis, maybe. Otherwise you'll leave him for the crazy clown when he finally snaps). You have two potential courses of action. You'd really rather take the first option; it involves living longer.

You transportalize into the main lab just as Kanaya's about to leave. You ask her where she's going. She says she intends to hatch the Matriorb in the center of the meteor. You tell her it sounds hopeful (you should know). You _don't_ tell her that it's actually a futile and stupid idea. If Gamzee's about to sober up and lose his shit in some way or another, the last thing you want him near is a newly-hatched mother grub. He'd probably kill that too. You don't tell her that you think it might be better to wait, see if you can get off this stupid rock and somewhere safer for everyone first. Yes, you're actually concerned about her. But the last time you told someone your feelings, you got shot down. The last time you expressed concern about someone, saved her life and brought her into the medium, she accused you of making inappropriate advances. You're not confident enough that you'll be taken seriously.

You tell her to wait for you, because apparently anything having to do with hope should involve you in some way. She sighs exasperatedly, but concedes to wait, chilling out next to the transportalizer with the Matriorb while you turn around to talk to Feferi.

Oh, motherfuck. Sollux is with her. Will she even listen to you if he's there? Will she even consider the options you're giving her? Does she even understand how much more danger you're all in staying here on this rock and going stir-crazy? It's better to die trying to save yourselves than to die futilely at the hands of your psycho ally.

You attempt to talk to her anyway. Sollux berates you. She auspistices. You explain your plan. She tells you you're insane. Sollux agrees. You insult him, he insults you, she auspistices. You push for plan A again, because plan A -joining Jack instead of waiting for him to come kill you all- is less likely to involve death than plan B. You don't mention plan B. Sollux insults you. You insult Sollux. You both ignore Feferi's auspisticing. She rejects plan A. She says she has to stop you. You insist on plan A. Sollux sides with her. You insult Sollux. Sollux stands, grabs you by the front of the shirt, drags you to the center of the room and demands a round two.

You're not very happy it has to come to plan B. Plan A involves living, and you'd rather everyone live. Plan B puts you off a bit, because plan B involves saving your friends from a painful death via Jack or Gamzee by killing them in the quickest, least painful way possible. You spent a good hour on your own in a pile of shitty wands reasoning with yourself and justifying this. You'll all be okay that way. You'll end up in a dreambubble together; you ignored Karkat's order not to sleep, you know where you're going when you die. Tavros told you. Vriska killed him (and she's another painful way you don't want Feferi to die). But you've justified it. You're saving their lives by killing them. Saving them from a more painful death. Saving them from suffering. Saving them from a doomed timeline they can't escape. You know when all hope is lost.

Somehow or another, through your white science haze of pretending-you're-not-murdering-your-comrades, Sollux ends up blown away (you don't know if he's just unconscious or actually dead and you don't give a fuck either way) and Feferi is yelling at you. Oh, god, she's mad. You just zapped her boyfriend, of course she's mad. She's got her trident out and everything, she's growling at you, ready to kill you, oh my god you actually have to do this you actually have to put on an act like you've totally snapped and murder the girl you're flushed for, this is so much more difficult done than said she's running at you with her trident she'll kill you if you don't kill her come on Eridan save her save the girl kill her save her do it do it do it oh god you can't do it-

You do it. You close your eyes, raise your arm, point your wand, blow a hole through her stomach. She's blown backward onto the horn pile, the honks as she lands echoing disturbingly in the otherwise silent computer lab. Her distinct magenta blood really is a nice color, you think, because at this point you're happy to think about anything as long as you're not thinking about the fact that you just killed the girl you pity.

Ignoring Karkat (the asshole), you turn around to talk to Kanaya, because she's an okay girl, she made you your wand, she's auspisticed for you for sweeps in whatever hateraging fight you've been in with Vriska, maybe she'll listen to you.

She uncaps her lipstick, readies her chainsaw. She's not listening to you.

You blow up the matriorb. You're not sure why, it just seemed like you ought to. There's no way so few trolls could restart the entire species anyway; there aren't enough of you to fill all of each other's quadrants (not that there are any imperial drones left to care about that anymore), none of you hate or pity each other enough any more, there's no way the mother grub would survive on a meteor (not that you doubt Kanaya's ability to raise the poor thing; you do, however, doubt her ability to fight off Vriska or Gamzee or whoever snapped next). Besides, if she won't go with plan A, she's not going to survive much longer here anyway. It's only a matter of time before Jack Noir finds you all and she _definitely_ can't stand up to him, not protecting a newly-hatched mother grub and whoever might be left by that point. She has to go with you, you and Feferi, into plan B.

She charges at you, chainsaw whirring horribly in the otherwise persisting silence of the lab. You close your eyes, raise your arm, bang. Kanaya goes down in a splatter of jade green. It's easier to deal with, psychologically, than Feferi… but it's starting to build up. Up until thirty seconds ago, the worst you'd ever done to another troll was murder their lusus and hand them over to Vriska and never see them again (you knew where they were going; you chose not to think about it too hard. Genocidal fantasies are one thing; committing genocide in reality is quite another. It's one thing to point the gun; pulling the trigger is far more difficult than you thought). And now you'd potentially killed your hatecrush, Sollux ,and murdered the only two people that tolerate you.

It occurs to you that when you arrive in the same dreambubble as them, they're not going to be very happy to see you. Recompense is in order. You suppose it's time for the end of plan B, with a slight change from your original iteration of it. Still ignoring Karkat (he's gaping at you in horror), you stumble onto the transportalizer and abscond the hell outta there.

You make your way staggeringly down the hall, trying to deal with yourself as a troll, as a person. You're an amoral bastard and you know it. You just killed your flushcrush and your only actual semi-friend and you know there are several things wrong with this, that even by troll standards you've just done something completely horrifying, Karkat's probably going to come after you with a sharp weapon now, oh, fuck…

You're not sure how long it takes because getting lost in your own horrible thoughts distracts you from the passing of time, but eventually you end up somewhere in the base facing down Vriska _and_ Gamzee. You'd been hoping to run into one or the other of them, because Vriska would probably do you in if you asked politely and sure enough, Gamzee's so far sobered up it's terrifying. He's already got Nepeta and Equius, by the looks of it, so he's probably not averse to beating the hell out of you either.

All three of you turn when you hear running footsteps. You imagine your eyes are probably as wide as ceramic sustenance platters because holy mother of fuck, it's Kanaya. Kanaya isn't dead. She's got a fucking hole through her stomach and she isn't dead and she's got her chainsaw she's covered in blood she-

-goes right past you. Kicks Gamzee off the edge of the platform. Punches out Vriska (you can practically see the hearts in the poor girl's eyes). And turns on you with a manic, glowing glare in her eyes.

You suppose this is recompense enough, or maybe a little more than enough, and then Kanaya chainsaws you in half.

Your final thought goes something along the lines of: _At least I won't be alone in the afterlife_...

You wake up in a dreambubble.

Nobody else is there.

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><p>I feel like I should apologize for this. Also if it made you upset in some way, shape or form, I'm sorry and have a digital hug, okay? I'm a twisted bitch. I know.<p>

Reviews will be fed into the quantum transducer and used to generate plot.


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